Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 59 (9164 total)
5 online now:
Newest Member: ChatGPT
Post Volume: Total: 916,927 Year: 4,184/9,624 Month: 1,055/974 Week: 14/368 Day: 14/11 Hour: 2/1


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Why God uses faith
ramoss
Member (Idle past 643 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 08-11-2004


Message 30 of 145 (290936)
02-27-2006 5:51 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by veiledvirtue
02-25-2006 5:53 PM


Douglas Adams has the answer for that.
The Babel fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy recieved not from its own carrier but from those around it, It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. the practical upshot of this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any language.
Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anhthing so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes like this : "I refuse to prove that I exist", says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But", says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? it could not have evolved by chance. it proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear", says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh that was easy" says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by veiledvirtue, posted 02-25-2006 5:53 PM veiledvirtue has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by arachnophilia, posted 02-27-2006 7:18 PM ramoss has not replied

  
ramoss
Member (Idle past 643 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 08-11-2004


Message 69 of 145 (291162)
03-01-2006 8:02 AM
Reply to: Message 65 by ringo
03-01-2006 1:42 AM


Re: Our dependence on witnesses
But the resurrection is not important. Faith involves believing in the message, not just the messenger. If you don't live the message, your "faith" in the messenger is meaningless.
But, it seems to me, the message was the messanger. They concentrate on how he died (for them), rather than how he lived

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by ringo, posted 03-01-2006 1:42 AM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 75 by ringo, posted 03-01-2006 10:12 AM ramoss has not replied

  
ramoss
Member (Idle past 643 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 08-11-2004


Message 84 of 145 (291278)
03-01-2006 3:39 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by Phat
03-01-2006 12:26 PM


Re: Faith No more .
So a skeptic would never make it? A skeptic with good works (altruistic and not selfishly expecting a reward) versus a Believer who trusts that God died and rose from the Dead for Him...yet who may still lead a materialist, mundane life....Do we know which one God favors, if any?
Well, just to compare and contrast. In Judaism, both 'sin' and 'righeousness' is based on ACTIONS, not on belief. There is a story of someone who was NOT Jewish that , because of his actions showed he was righteous, and therefore was allowed to preform the sacrifice of the Red Heifer for the temple.
Since Sin is an ACTION, and not a STATE, babys are born as blank slates, with no inherited sin. Therefore, there is no 'original sin', there is no 'fall' as Christians see it, and there is no need for 'salvation', as defined by the CHristian religion.
Christianity has a debate within it about 'works' vs "faith". This debate does not exist in Judaism.
Since both 'sin' and 'righeousness' are based on actions, there is no 'grace'. So, when it comes to the Jewish religion, it is not FAITH that matters, it is ACTIONS.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by Phat, posted 03-01-2006 12:26 PM Phat has not replied

  
ramoss
Member (Idle past 643 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 08-11-2004


Message 94 of 145 (291521)
03-02-2006 2:30 PM
Reply to: Message 93 by Heathen
03-02-2006 2:19 PM


Re: Our dependence on witnesses
She is also ruling out the possiblity that it WAS Gabriel, and christianity is morally replaced

This message is a reply to:
 Message 93 by Heathen, posted 03-02-2006 2:19 PM Heathen has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 95 by Faith, posted 03-02-2006 4:29 PM ramoss has not replied

  
ramoss
Member (Idle past 643 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 08-11-2004


Message 112 of 145 (291835)
03-03-2006 1:43 PM
Reply to: Message 105 by ringo
03-02-2006 11:22 PM


Re: Our dependence on witnesses
There, of course, is the third and the 4th possiblity.
The third possiblity is that , since the New Testament contradicts the Old testament, the Jews are right, and both the Christians and the Mulsims are wrong (for that matter, the samaratians might be right, and anything past the pentaach is wrong).
Or everything from genesis to the koran is wrong.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 105 by ringo, posted 03-02-2006 11:22 PM ringo has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024